For Immediate Release Media Contact: Cherie Hill, Communications Manager, chill@calhum.org
California Humanities is pleased to announce $350,000 in awards to 13 new film and podcast productions through the 2021 California Documentary Project grant program.
The California Documentary Project (CDP) grant program supports humanities-based media productions that seek to document California in all its complexity. Since 2003, California Humanities has awarded over $6.5 million to projects that use the humanities to provide context, depth, and perspective; enhance our understanding of California and its cultures, peoples, and histories; and reach and engage statewide and national audiences through broadcasts, festivals, community screenings, and in classrooms, libraries and more.
This year, nine CDP Production Grants and four Research and Development Grants will support nonfiction films and podcasts that tell essential and timely California stories from around the state. These newly funded CDP projects uncover, interpret, and share the stories of California and Californians. From a film about the 1960s origins of an unrenowned pioneering street dance subculture in Oakland to a podcast series that documents the impact of the recent Santa Cruz Mountain wildfires, to a film exploring the role of new wave music in shaping identity among Vietnamese refugees in Orange County, each project adds a new layer to a complex and growing portrait of the state. Together, the awarded projects help us better understand who we are and where we live.
California Humanities’ President & CEO Julie Fry states, “We are grateful to have received so many applications and know that California is full of important stories that illustrate the diversity and richness of our state. We congratulate our newest grantees, knowing that the voices amplified by these grants will grow our collective understanding of the people and cultures of California.”
About California Humanities: California Humanities, a nonprofit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities, promotes the humanities—focused on ideas, conversation and learning—as relevant, meaningful ways to understand the human condition and connect people to each other in order to help strengthen California. California Humanities has provided grants and programs across the state since 1975. To learn more, visit calhum.org, or like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
